Philadelphia Inquirer's Scores

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For 4,176 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 70% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Hell or High Water
Lowest review score: 0 The Mangler
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,145 out of 4176
  2. Mixed: 682 out of 4176
  3. Negative: 349 out of 4176
4176 movie reviews
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  1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
    Unlike most films about teenagers, the performances are happy-sad-realistic. Lerman, who plays the least expressive of the three principals, does a fine job at suggesting the active inner life of an externally inexpressive youth.
  2. The Sapphires
    A sloppy, sentimental story line and pivotal plot turns that are only sketchily realized undermine the life-on-the-road misadventures.
  3. Garden State
    The best performances are those of Portman and the resourceful Peter Sarsgaard (Shattered Glass) as Mark.
  4. The Green Prince
    The Green Prince is an extraordinary achievement. It has all the suspense of a great espionage yarn, but it's also a powerful moral document that calls into question the tactics of terrorism.
  5. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
    This sweet, yet unsentimental film is about growing up, losing innocence, and longing for a place, and people, to call home.
  6. Visual Acoustics
    Shulman photographed buildings as if they were movie stars: He found their best angles and immortalized them.
  7. Furious 7
    It's all dumb, but it's wonderfully, comfortably dumb in just the right way.
  8. Brothers of the Head
    Unnerving.
  9. Death at a Funeral
    The mostly British ensemble can do this stuff in their sleep, but Macfadyen and Donovan and Graves, especially, work up the necessary antic angst and silliness.
  10. Farewell, My Queen
    Seydoux, no doubt best known for her kickboxing catfight with Paula Patton in "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," gives a quiet, watchful performance, suggesting fealty for her lady but also a strong independent streak.
  11. Reality Bites
    Sneakily funny and hopelessly romantic, Reality Bites speaks with the distinctive, ironic voice that marks it as The Graduate of Generation X. [18 Feb 1994, p.03]
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  12. Stranger Than Fiction
    Stranger Than Fiction is slicker than Kaufman's work - and Forster's direction is certainly more studio-ish than Kaufman collaborators Spike Jonze's or Michel Gondry's. But it's a clever idea, and you feel a little smarter watching the thing unfurl.
  13. Cairo Time
    As in David Lean's "Brief Encounter," the suspense in Cairo Time comes from what doesn't happen between its pair of "lovers."
  14. Nowhere Boy
    Taylor-Wood stresses the universals rather than the specifics of John's youth. So don't go expecting a Fab Four origin story. The word Beatles is never uttered. But do go.
  15. Zathura: A Space Adventure
    Jon Favreau, the actor-director who made the delightful family film "Elf," has a firm grip and a light touch with this material about bickering brothers who find a board game that zaps the family home into hyperspace.
  16. The Darjeeling Limited
    A movie about people who literally carry a lot of emotional baggage, metaphorically unpack it, and spiritually lighten their loads. By the end, I felt lighter. Which is closer to enlightenment than most movies get.
  17. Barney's Version
    That rumpled grumpus Paul Giamatti seizes the title role in Barney's Version, summoning irresistibility and irritability to create a character as endearing as he is galling.
  18. Over the Hedge
    Over the Hedge isn't by any stretch bad. It's just banal.
  19. Too Much Sleep
    A picture that's pleasantly forgettable.
  20. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    All about the wacky borderlands where reality and invention intersect. But there are no safe demarcations -- no demilitarized zone, no Berlin Wall -- to cue us to which side we're operating in, or that Barris is operating in.
  21. Me Without You
    A chick movie? Well, yes, but it's a whole lot cooler than that one with the "Ya-Ya's" in the title.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust
    The coda to this fine, loving tribute offers restitution, though no tidy resolution.
  23. Solaris
    For those who have seen Tarkovsky's moody original, let me say that Soderbergh skims the fat from the 1972 film. What's left is a rich stew of longing.
  24. Rudo y Cursi
    That the fantasy comes crashing back to earth seems all but inevitable. That Rudo y Cursi doesn't crash in the process - that's muy bien.
  25. Fight Club
    A knockout...So feverish is Fight Club...that thermometer contact might make mercury shatter.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Seasons
    Most of the footage is stunning, yet the film is more about observation than visual stimulation.
  27. This Is It
    Michael Jackson's This Is It looks beyond the reconstructed face and spindly body of the late King of Pop and basks in his meteoric light.
  28. Somewhere
    Ultimately, Somewhere may be too static, too minimalist a tale. But there's grace here.
  29. Frequency
    Smart, suspenseful, satisfyingly unpredictable.
    • Philadelphia Inquirer
  30. Barbershop: The Next Cut
    The weight of the picture's moral and political message rests on Ice Cube's Calvin. A decent, honest man with a well-developed sense of responsibility and a passion for social justice, he's an iconic American type - the reluctant hero. He'd rather tend to his own garden, but when called to duty, he's all in.
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